"did any of the other Splinter Cell games have an extensive multiplayer?" Oh, God no. And I hope they don't give us this list of multiplayer modes like MGS4, after all this isn't Ghost Recon. Just give us enough stealth modes, polished & balanced and it should be enough.

Player hosted games will only lead ISPs to the need to hike prices, limit bandwidth, or both. This means players will be paying more to game in the end which will cut into their ability to play multiplayer games, which means less people will buy multiplayer games as a whole.

So, while they may be saving some money in the short run, in the long run they'll lose out on more money.